• General Notes

  [316552.ftw]
  
  I REMEMBER YESTERDAY
       By Mary Elizabeth Powell Saul
       Handwritten Feb/Mar 1981
  
  My parents, William Henry Powell and Vina Ann Darrington
  Powell, lived in Boomer Township, Pottawattamie County,
  Iowa, (7 miles west of Neola) when I was born.  That was on
  Dec. 20, 1897.  I was the first of seven children and was
  born at home with the help of Papa's Aunt (Nancy) Jane
  Powell Welbourn also delivered Ethel and Vera.
  
  The Powell Side.  My Grandpa Powell (John Henry Powell,
  Papa's father) was a little, thin man and real jolly with
  little kids.  He sure liked little kids.  He just always
  was loving us up.  We just lived over the hill from him and
  were with him a lot.  We sure liked Grandpa Powell. Papa's
  mother died before I was born.  Her name was Eleanor Gilson
  Powell.  She and Grandpa had several children.  My Papa
  (William Henry Powell) was the oldest; then Aunt Vera; then
  Uncle Charlie; then they lost two children, one three years
  old and one was a baby; then Aunt Annie; then Aunt Janie;
  then Aunt Edna.  Grandpa's second wife's name was Melissa.
  She was never much of a real grandma to us.  She wasn't
  very warm to us.  Grandpa was.  She and Grandpa had Johnny.
  He was a year younger than Ethel.  He died of consumption
  when he was about 30 years old. It is called TB these days.
  
  My great grandma was Jane Elizabeth Lane Powell.  She died
  when I was 12.  Papa's oldest sister, Vera, called herself
  the "ugliest aunt in the country."  She was married to John
  Burbridge.  When Ethel and I were in Iowa when we were
  little and visiting there we spent three weeks with them.
  They had watermelons and I ate too much of them.
  
  One time they went to Council Bluffs with another couple,
  name of Shane, and they had one daughter they left with us
  kids.  Their children were Pearl, she was just two years
  older than I.  Then there was Earl, the one who died a year
  or two ago, the husband of Gladys who is a friend of Hazel
  Runkel's here in town.  They lived in Logan County, Iowa,
  just north of Pottawattamie County.  Pearl was 13, I was
  11, Ethel was 9, and then there was this little girl and
  Earl and Donald.  They had Charles in later years.
  
  Anyway, the parents left early and drove as far as Missouri
  Valley and then they took a train to Council Bluffs.  They
  didn't get back until midnight.  But that day we just
  teased and pestered that little girl something terrible.  I
  probably was mostly the instigator.  She  was spoiled and
  had on brand new, pretty shoes and a nice dress.  We pushed
  her into the horse trough and made her walk in it.  Got her
  new, pretty dress wet.  I don't know why I was always mean
  to kids.  Never had the friends, either, that Ethel had.
  
  Then we were at my aunt Annie Clark's (Papa's other
  sister).  They had Harold, Mabel, and another boy.  We
  stayed down there a few days and then we went to Grandpa
  Powell's awhile.  We didn't go to Aunt Edna's.  Aunt Edna
  had such pretty, clear, blue eyes.  She is six years older
  than I. She just had one girl, Helen (Collins).  Johnny
  Powell's wife is Zina. They had two children, June and
  John.  Zina still lives in Crescent, I think, and has not
  married.
  
  First Grade.  My Mama started me to school in Sept. 1903.
  Two little boys were walking past our place; Mama said,
  "You go walk with them to school."  But I walked on the
  side of the road in the dusty grass and weeds.  It was a
  half mile.  My teacher's name was Rose.  I really didn't
  like school, so one day I took my slate and lunch pail,
  went out across the road, down into my Grandpa Powell's
  pasture and sat down.  Grandpa saw me and took me home with
  him.  (He should have taken me back to school.)
  
  One time I had a loose tooth;  I suppose it was my first
  one.  Anyway, Grandpa Powell pulled it.  I cried and said,
  "I'm going to tell Papa to spank you."  Another time Mama
  sent Ethel and me to Grandpa's to get a garden hoe
  sharpened.  On our way home we heard a noise.  It was a man
  in a wagon driving a team of horses.  Anyway, when I turned
  to look back, I struck Ethel in the forehead with the point
  of the hoe.  I had the hoe on my shoulder.  Ethel ran
  crying with a bloody face.  She still has the scar.
  
  I did some bad things when I was young.  Mama had been
  planting garden. Later, I went out and tried my hand at
  planting baby chickies  When I went in the house and told
  Mama what I had done she went out and found most of them
  dead.  I suppose I got a spanking.  Another time we were
  going to town, Neola, to do some trading.  You notice I
  said "trading" and not "shopping".  People in those days
  took in their butter and eggs and traded for groceries.  So
  I figured we would be gone for awhile and my kitty might
  run away.  So I got a string, tied it around the cat's neck
  and onto the woven wire fence.  You can guess what
  happened.  The cat hung itself.  I remember seeing it
  hanging there.
  
  When we went trading I would have fun looking in the mirror
  at the store.  I would run in back of the mirror and say,
  "Where is that little girl?"
  
  One time my folks could not find me around the house, barn
  or other farm buildings and were about to go over the hill
  to my Grandpa Powell's place to look for me.  But here came
  the milk cows down the lane from the pasture and me and my
  dog, Shine.  I thought it was time to milk the cows.  I was
  a couple of hours early.
  
  
  I remember a man with a wagon of posts and mail boxes
  coming.  He put up a mail box for us.  A few days later the
  mail carrier came.  He left us a big, thick catalog from
  Montgomery Ward.  I remember bringing it into the house.
  
  Shortly before we moved from Iowa to South Dakota, we all
  went to Papa's Aunt Jane's and got two gallon pails of
  sorghum.  We went over in a lumber wagon...Mama, Papa,
  Ethel and me.  They had a field of cane near their place.
  They cut the cane and put it in a grinder that was powered
  by one horse going around and around.  The juice ran
  through a pipe into a big oblong tank that was right in the
  side of a long building  There was a little fire below the
  tanks and they skimmed off the foam and then it ran into
  another tank and boiled and I think a third tank had the
  finished molasses.  By that time it was thick and sweet.
  Sure strong tasting, but very good for a person.
  
  Aunt Jane's youngest child, Ruth Cecelia Welbourn, was two
  years older than I.  Ruth was in the yard and she talked to
  me.  I was 4 and she was 6 years old.  (We had a calendar
  and Mama pointed out to me that I was 5 when we moved to
  South Dakota.)
  
  One Sunday we went to visit Papa's sister, Vern Burbridge.
  The family was not at home and we were hungry; so Papa
  found a bowl of beans and we girls and he ate them.
  
  Some of our neighbors had sheep and lambs.  I always wanted
  a lamb, but I never got one.  Papa got me a little goat,
  but not for long as it tried butting me.  It wasn't any fun.
  
  One time Pigeon River flooded.  We walked up the hill from
  our home, stood up there and looked at all the water.  Sure
  was wide.  Had a big rain.  Later, when we thought it was
  down enough, we drove around over to Grandpa and Grandma
  Darrington's.  The water was still rather high.  The water
  came over the horse's belly and into the floor of the buggy.
  
  The Darrington Side.  Grandpa and Grandma Darrington had
  come back to Iowa with their first three sons from Utah by
  oxen teams.  They did not want to raise their family as
  Mormons.  Grandpa Darrington came from England first; then
  later grandma and her sisters, my aunt Elizabeth (my
  namesake) and Auntie Joyce (also my great aunt and Grandma
  Darrington's aunt) and her husband, John Joyce.  This was
  before my grandparents married.  They met in Utah, but were
  already acquainted in England. However, it wasn't long
  until they all moved to Iowa.  Elizabeth (Lizzie) married a
  Ward.  When the Joyces died, the Darringtons and Wards had
  words over the inheritance of the Joyces; so they were not
  friends after that.  (They are all buried in the Grange
  Cemetery near Neola, Iowa.)
  
  I sure liked to go to Grandma Darrington's.  She always had
  a big stone crock of sugar cookies.  Aunt Amy, Uncle
  Charles, Uncle Arthur and Uncle Nate were still at home.
  They all played with us and would toss us up into the air.
  Mama's older brothers, Will, George, Alf and Herb, were
  married.  Uncle Arthur was married about 1917 when he was
  42 years old. Uncle Nate was married November 14, 1909.
  Uncle Charles never married. After Grandpa and Grandma
  Darrington died, he stayed on the original farm.
  
  We went to Grandma Darrington's often; sometimes Mama and
  we girls walked, or Mama would wheel Vera in the baby
  buggy.  It was a mile across the pasture and fields, and
  nearly three miles by road.
  
  One time my mother took off on a sunny afternoon to call on
  a neighbor lady who lived over the hill north of us about
  half a mile.  On our way home a man in a top-buggy overtook
  us and offered us a ride.  Mama was carrying Vera, leading
  Ethel, and I was tagging along.  So Mama got in the buggy
  with Ethel and Vera.  I wouldn't get in.  They asked me to
  get in, then they coaxed me, but I would not get in.  I
  just stood back and kept saying, "Mama has a boyfriend."
  Finally Mama had to get out and walk.  I learned later that
  the man was best man at my parents' wedding.
  
  Going to South Dakota.  Papa's Uncle Dike (Israel Nordike
  Powell) lived in Bonesteel, South Dakota.  He came to visit
  his Iowa relatives...his brother who was my Grandpa John
  Powell, his sister Nancy Jane Powell Welbourne, his niece,
  Vernie Burbridge, and other nieces and nephews.  He told my
  folks they should move to South Dakota.  He said the soil
  was virgin and fertile and one could plow gold, it was so
  rich.
  
  Uncle Dike's farm was near the county line and would be
  extended west as soon as the U.S. Government opened it for
  settlement, as it was, at that time, an Indian Reservation.
  It was later named Rosebud Indian Reservation.  Half of
  Uncle Dike's farm was what became Bonesteel, SD. Also,
  north of the road part of his place was taken for the
  County Fair Grounds.
  
  Uncle Dike had a wife, Mollie, daughters Nettie, Lizzie,
  Gladys, Eva and a son Dikie.
  
  So in March of 1904 my parents hauled furniture, two horses
  and machinery to Council Bluffs to a freight car on a train
  that would go to Bonesteel.  It was called the Chicago
  Northwestern Railway.
  
  Bonesteel was the end of the railroad line.  On my way home
  from school at Bonesteel, I would stop and look at the
  place where the engines were turned around.  A big, black,
  oily looking place.  Our family went from Iowa to Bonesteel
  on a passenger train after we had shipped our things ahead
  on the freight train.  The ride took about 12 hours...all
  day...300 miles.  The train stopped at every little
  settlement.
  
  We arrived at our Uncle Dike's home and there was no house
  for us to move into.  So many people were coming because
  the land was opening up for settlement...they had come to
  register for a claim.  We finally moved into a two room log
  house.  It was so old and a lot of the filling between the
  logs had fallen out.  Mama cried!  What a change.  First,
  in Iowa a new home - now this.  My Papa got a two-seated
  buggy and a small team of horses and took passengers out to
  the new land.  The horses we had were big work horses.  The
  people had received numbers as to where their claims of 160
  acres were located.  Papa would be gone early to late every
  day taking people to locate their claims.  Several other
  men did this, too.
  
  Indians often stopped at our place as there was a fresh
  water spring near the log house.  They knew about it.  So
  they would come inside and look at the pictures on the
  walls.  One time Mama had bread in the oven.  They smelled
  it and wanted some.  Mama motioned that it was not ready.
  One time some Indians left a saddle horse beside our road
  lying down.  That night Papa gave it water and oats and the
  next morning it was able to walk.  We kept it for a few
  years. (More on this later.)
  
  We had arrived in Bonesteel in March 1904, so I started to
  school again. I had not attended very often that past fall.
  The teacher's name was Miss Lousher.  I was six years old
  that past December.  I had over a mile and a half to walk.
  I would go on the road until I came to the railroad track;
  then I walked on it till I got into town.  The railroad
  track was built out to the county line about two miles but
  was never used past Bonesteel.
  
  In school we sang "Jack Frost bites little girls' and boys'
  noses and toes."  One morning, on my way, I had gotten over
  a hump in the road so I couldn't see home anymore and a man
  in a wagon came by.  He had two nervous horses.  He had a
  long whip, and two large metal trunks.  And he asked me to
  get in and I said "No" several times.  He threw his whip
  around and I got scared so I got in.  He started to hit his
  horses and up the road we went.  The horses were running
  fast and the trunks were bouncing.  He kept whipping the
  horses, up the grade, over the railroad track, and down
  again.  Then the road crossed a low place with a culvert
  and I crawled to the back of the wagon.  My lunch pail flew
  out.  I climbed out on the reach of the wagon, hung on a
  second, and then dropped to the ground.  I was all dirty
  and dusty.
  
  Soon my Uncle Dike came along on horseback.  He had taken
  his cows over to the pasture near the Fairgrounds.  He
  helped me look for my pail and we found it...but not my
  cup.  About that time that man came walking, his face
  skinned and bloody.  Uncle Dike scolded him (actually he
  swore at him).  Then Uncle and I got on the horse and went
  to his home.  Aunt Mollie washed me, fixed some lunch and I
  walked through the town to school.  I must have been plenty
  late.  A few days later, some children found my cup and
  brought it to school and I was sure happy.  We had
  neighbors there by the name of McDermet, Story, Ingersol,
  Litgo and Graham.
  
  I remember while living near Bonesteel we were invited to
  our uncle and aunt's for Easter dinner.  We kids and the
  mothers went to the hen house to look for eggs.  Instead of
  hen's eggs there were colored eggs.  I never had heard of
  colored eggs before.  We were so surprised and delighted.
  Our mothers had never told us any mythical stories.  We
  were just so happy to find pretty eggs.  I begged Mama to
  get some of those kinds of hens.  I never was told the
  Easter story.  I had heard of God and Jesus.  We went to
  church in Iowa.  The church was out in the country all by
  itself.  Uncle Arthur was Superintendent.  Mama's people
  attended.  Papa's people didn't go to church, but were
  good, honest people.
  
  Our Home.  Well, back to my early childhood.  We moved from
  the log house to a very small one-room house in Gregory,
  SD.  (I told the neighbors we were moving to "Gravy.")  The
  bed folded up against the wall.  Houses were hard to get as
  people were coming faster than buildings could be built.
  We lived there on the first day of May, as a tap came at
  the door; when I opened it, there was a basket of flowers
  on the door knob. I didn't see who left them.  Later we got
  acquainted with our neighbors. They had a girl about my
  age.  Her name was Violet Walton.  Mama visited with Mrs.
  Walton.
  
  We didn't stay in that little house very long.  Mama
  insisted we go out to our homestead.  So a real big tent
  was put up while our house was being built.  The house was
  two rooms on the main floor and two rooms upstairs - 12 x
  24 in size.  While we were in the tent we had plenty of
  room but it was not very sanitary.  We had a dirt floor.
  Mama had things sitting on the floor.  One time a pig came
  in and tipped over a can of cream.  The wind sounded worse
  than it was in that tent.
  
  By fall the house was finished enough so that we could move
  in.  No lath or plaster on the ceiling or walls; but at
  least we had four rooms.  It took a long time to get the
  house finished.
  
  Mama and we three girls went to Iowa on the train to attend
  Aunt Amy and Charlie Thomas' wedding on September 20, 1905.
  Mama was five months pregnant with Bertha.  Aunt Amy was
  so disgusted with Mama.  Some of the other sisters-in-law
  shunned her too.  Bertha was born January 16, 1906. When
  Mama and we girls came back, Papa met us at the depot.  A
  train had been coming as far as Dallas, SD four miles on
  farther west of Gregory, so that was the place where the
  engine turned around.
  
  When we got to our unfinished home, Mama cried.  Also, Papa
  was chewing Horseshoe plug tobacco.  It was in square plugs
  and had a little tin horseshoe wedge on it.  We took these
  off and mailed them to the R.J. Reynolds Company as they
  gave prizes for the horseshoes returned to them.  Ethel and
  I counted out an awful lot, in the hundreds, I suppose, and
  wrapped them up.  I remember addressing it to R. J.
  Reynolds in Tennessee, I think.  I don't remember what we
  got.  We chose according to the number of horseshoes.  Mama
  wasn't happy about Papa taking up chewing; she was really
  let-down, not much to be proud of on the homestead and
  shunned in Iowa.
  
  But back to the wedding in Iowa.  Aunt Amy and Uncle
  Charlie were married on the front porch of Grandpa and
  Grandma Darrington's home.  My cousin, Adah, rode with her
  grandparents in a carriage with fringe on top and she was
  wearing a pink silk dress.  Then she went upstairs and
  changed into a white silk dress, as maybe the pink one
  might have gotten dusty.  Adah is the daughter of my Uncle
  Will and his wife Adah, who died in childbirth when Adah
  was born.  So the maternal grandparents took her to raise.
  Will Driver (he stuttered) came walking to the wedding with
  a wooden rocker on his head.  It was his wedding gift to
  them.  Will was husband to Mary, sister of Aunt Annie,
  mother of Lucille Fiedler.
  
  That fall I started school in Gregory.  It was held in the
  back of a store.  There were barrels of black, thick tar,
  and some of us chewed it.  There was a wooden water tank
  and two pumps in the middle of town. I rode a horse
  sometimes.  Her name was "Doll" and she was a pretty
  sorrel.  When I got to school I tied up the reins and
  turned her loose. She knew the way home.  Besides, I could
  see our house and barn from the school yard.  It was 1 1/2
  miles straight across and 2 miles around on the section
  lines, but there were no fences then.
  
  Another Baby Sister.  Then came January, 1906; my sister,
  Bertha, was born January 16th, early in the morning.  I
  suppose Papa rode the saddle horse in to Gregory.  Got Dr.
  Spencer (a fat, old man) out of bed.  He came in a
  one-horse top buggy.  Mama always claimed he was drunk.
  Maybe he took a few drinks because it was early, cold and
  stormy.  I remember getting up just before he left.  He had
  his horse tied to the hitching post.  Mama needed some
  woman to help her as Papa wasn't much help around the
  house.  I was put to work.  Washing smelly new baby diapers
  gave me a headache, but I did help a lot.  Mama laid in bed
  and told me how to cook and do housework.  I was 8 years
  old that December.  I took care of Bertha from then on.
  Mama sat down to nurse her.  I changed her, rocked her,
  etc.  She was always kicking, so we nicknamed her "Kicky."
  We called her that until she started to school.
  
  First Grade Again.  That fall the Powell School was built,
  so Ethel and I started to school, both in the first grade.
  I had gone to three different schools but never attended
  enough to pass the first grade. Ethel and I were in the
  same class until we attended high school and then we took
  different subjects.
  
  Cow Chips.  When we first lived in South Dakota on the
  prairie, the land was treeless except near a stream of
  water, the Ponca Creek.  It was three and a half miles
  south of us and had some water and trees.  Papa and other
  men drove with wagons to the Missouri River hills and would
  chop down trees and bring home wood.  The trees were so
  small. Otherwise, we had to burn coal.  At first there were
  no corn cobs and we girls would take our little wagon and
  go pick up cow chips in the pasture for fuel.
  
  We used cow chips for fuel a lot.  They made lots of ashes.
  Sometimes, if there was a little dampness in the ground
  there would be small ground puppies or lizards under the
  chips, so we carried a long stick to turn the chips over.
  There were lots of beautiful cactuses - some were probably
  three feet in diameter - all colors.  Mama tried
  transplanting some but they died.  After cattle grazed the
  land the cactus seemed to die out; anyway, in later years
  they disappeared.
  
  There were prairie chickens.  They were good eating but
  they, too, finally disappeared.  One time Papa saw a nest
  full of eggs and he carefully plowed around it and we girls
  were not to go near that nest. But Ethel couldn't stand the
  temptation and she went out there, filled her skirt with
  all the eggs and brought them home.  She was real proud of
  herself.  Made Papa so mad and sad, too.  So he spanked
  Ethel.  He took the eggs back; don't know if the hen stayed
  with the nest or not.  They say if one touches the nest
  they will abandon it.
  
  I guess we did a lot of things we shouldn't have done, like
  me cutting Fly's tail in stair steps.  I thought I was
  doing a favor by cutting the short hairs that kind of stuck
  out.  Papa said, "You should have known better than that."
  
  One time I was walking home alone from the Powell School.
  I don't know why I was alone.  Anyway, an old Indian,
  barefoot, came along in a wagon.  They always had a canvas
  over the top.  Someone might have been sleeping in there.
  He stopped, kept coaxing me to get in and ride.  I kept
  shaking my head "no" and finally I pointed over across the
  pasture to the bachelor's home and pretended I lived there.
  I went under the fence, started that way, so he went on.
  Then I came to the road again and he had gone around the
  big hill by then.  I didn't lose any time getting home.
  
  The Indians seemed to be good people.  But they, especially
  the men, were lazy.  Also, they all were very smelly.  One
  could smell them before you saw them.  Their little
  papooses were pretty, strapped on the mothers' backs.  They
  came in a grocery store and would point at what they
  wanted, then pay for it; then point at something else and
  pay again.  Never two things at once.
  
  We never saw any school age Indian children.  They were
  away at a school, like Chemawa Indian School in Salem,
  Oregon.  The reason so many Indians passed our place at
  Bonesteel is because we were on the main road from the
  Santee Reservation in Nebraska and they were on their way
  to the Rosebud Reservation in Western South Dakota.  That
  road is now Highway 18.  The ornery Indians were
  half-breeds.  Their fathers were French and mothers were
  Indian.  When French fur traders came up the Missouri
  River, they married the pretty Indian maidens.  Lewis and
  Clark took some along, too.
  
  Homesteading and Farming.  The first year on the homestead
  my Papa did freighting.  He had a big, high box wagon, four
  horses, and drove to Bonesteel to load up merchandise,
  hardware or whatever the merchants needed.  Freight trains
  came as far as Bonesteel.  As soon as Gregory County was
  extended on out five miles west of Gregory the railroad was
  started.  We girls watched the men working, coming through
  a cut, a little hill, and on out to the level land to
  Gregory.  There were men with horses and mules digging and
  cutting and leveling the land.  A work train coming on the
  new track, dumping off ties, rails, nails, etc.  Soon the
  freighters, like my Papa, were out of a job.  Freight
  trains, passenger trains, one baggage car, two passenger
  cars - towns were booming.  One town, Dallas, had been
  built in anticipation of the railroad coming that way.
  Jackson Brothers were the main owners.  But they were three
  miles too far south.  So they moved most of the buildings
  four miles west of Gregory and that is as far west as it
  went.
  
  Milking.  I learned to milk a cow, "Brock", when I was 8
  and I milked her for a year and then after that it was
  three cows, morning and night.  One time, years later, the
  folks and I went somewhere, didn't get home until dark.
  Ethel had milked all of the cows, 11 of them; some were
  hard to milk, too.
  
  Breaking Horses.  I must tell you of the thrills I got
  every spring, when it was time to break in the young 3 year
  old colts or horses.  My father always had one or two young
  horses to break or train to work every spring.  When I was
  old enough to stand up alone in the wagon, I was there.
  
  First, the horse objected to a harness and bridle bit in
  its mouth.  A big, gentle work horse was put beside it; the
  mouth or bit was tied to the heavy part of the hames where
  the tug fastened on the big horse...generally "Prince."
  (In much later years, Ed and I used "Florie.")  We also had
  a long rope on the colt, and, if we didn't have a hired
  hand at the time, I held the rope.  The horses were then
  hitched to the wagon.
  
  Then the fun started - rearing, bucking, twisting, anything
  to try to get out of that harness and get loose.  I just
  loved that.  But once in a great while the colt didn't try
  so hard.  I'd say, "Well, guess we can't always have fun."
  
  So after a few times, we would hitch it and five other
  horses to the two-blade plow, two abreast, the colt on the
  outside of the three.  The colt would lunge, but finally
  found out it had to pull like the rest.  I always went out
  and helped 3-hitch the five, morning and noon.  (One time
  Ed and I got the colt and old mare together and instead of
  hooking them up, we tried driving them around the yard.  I
  had ahold of the rope. They went too fast and I had braced
  my heels in the ground -- tore both heels off my shoes.)
  
  Powell School.  Our school was a one-room grade school.  We
  had to walk 1 1/4 miles to it.  The teacher had to carry in
  the coal and put it in the stove and carry in a bucket of
  water.  We had a dipper with a long handle on it and we all
  drank from this pail of water.  The first few years there
  were as many as 20-some children in the school, and then it
  dwindled down until there were only about 12.  My sister
  Ethel and I were in the 7th and 8th grades all by ourselves.
  
  The rest of the children were younger.  Our teacher at that
  time is 97 years old now (1981) and her name is Pearl
  Robinson Dyer.  She is still the same little, spry lady and
  doesn't act like she is that old.  Her husband is Bernie
  Dyer.  Ethel and I attended high school in Gregory the next
  four years.  There were about 1,000 people in the town at
  that time.
  
  We girls started to the Powell School in September 1906.
  There were several kids, big ones, little ones, and all
  sizes and nationalities.  We had teachers who taught three
  terms of school: fall, winter and spring. One winter we had
  a man teacher, Warren Rankin.  He asked the kids their
  nationality.  There were Dutch, German, Bohemian, etc.
  When he came to Ethel and I we said we were "Democrat".
  Later  when he met Papa, Mr. Rankin told Papa what we said.
  Rankin was a Republican.  Later Mr. Rankin's sister, Mrs.
  Caddes, her husband, Harry, and family moved to Gregory.
  They all came from a little ways south of Council Bluffs.
  The Caddes family and us were good friends.
  
  We walked 1 1/4 miles to school - had to cross the railroad
  track.  There was a sign "Stop, Look & Listen."  We always
  did.  We could see Gregory the other way for one mile.  The
  train did run over and kill cows.  I saw that.  There was
  an empty sod house, one room, homesteaded just north of the
  track.  Some of our cows went in, pushed the door shut and
  then couldn't get out.  I looked in the open window.  I
  managed to get the door open.  They were glad to get home
  and get a drink of water.
  
  The Ponies.   My Papa bought two ponies one time, about
  1906.  He gave the bigger one to his cousin, Lizzie Powell,
  and the smaller one to me. She was about 700 pounds - a
  strawberry roan.  I named her "Fly."  In the summer she was
  nearly brown, in the winter nearly white.  I never trained
  her right - let her have her way.  She was a good pal to
  me.  I herded cattle winter and summer.  There were no
  fences.  We had 25 or 30 cattle and I'd have two or three
  from one bachelor and one from another. Sometimes I'd take
  the stock where the grass was best.  My pony was tricky.
  She would blow up her stomach real big when I was trying to
  tighten on girth or cinch.  Then I'd take hold of the
  saddle and it would be loose, so I'd watch my chance to
  tighten it in a hurry.
  
  I rode around the country just for the fun of it.  Went up
  on the buttes from the back side.  It sloped off there.
  The buttes are two high hills joined together.  Right in
  Gregory.  They have two points that are steep on the west,
  south and east sides.  The town had wells dug not far from
  the buttes.  They built large water tanks or reservoirs on
  top.  Water was piped up there.  That gave the water
  pressure for the town.  It is still in operation and always
  will be.  I have climbed up there several times.  There are
  steps now.  One can see so far over the countryside.  I
  walked to the top in 1975, too.
  
  Money.  One time I went into town for Mama to get some
  dressmaking material.  I bought it and it came to $1.05.  I
  paid the $1.00 and said, "I have another dollar but I don't
  want to break it for five cents.  I'll bring the nickel in
  someday."  And I did.[576008.ftw]
  
  I REMEMBER YESTERDAY By Mary Elizabeth Powell Saul Handwritten Feb/Mar 1981 My parents, William Henry Powell and Vina Ann Darrington Powell, lived in Boomer T ow

Details of John H.'s family with Eleanor Elizabeth GIBSON

Details of John H.'s family with Melissa Duncan Sigler